Greetings from baggage claim at Seatac. All is well on the always hectic travel day. All campers are where they are supposed to be. Many are already with their families. For those flying, all flights are in the air except for Redmond and Houston, and those are close to it.
After a big travel day, it’s hard not to focus on that, but for this post, I want to spend most of my time on last night, and last week. Both were fantastic endings to a wonderful session. Last night was a lovely Final Evening Fire. There was so much beautiful music and poetry, and palpable feelings of love and community. As Evening Fire came to a close, flashes of lightning from a distant storm lit up the night sky, a rare thing in the San Juan Islands. As our circle of candles around the pickleball courts was extinguished, we got the first few drops of rain of what would become a pretty solid overnight downpour, which helpfully cleared up before flags, breakfast, and loading the boats this morning. I’m not one to believe in putting too much meaning on things like weather, but in a slightly welled-up moment at the end of the summer, it’s hard not to put a little extra meaning on it.
The last week was a wonderful one as well. This was a great group of campers and staff. They fully embraced the spirit of what it means to be at Four Winds, and they squeezed every last drop out of the last week. The campers will have many great memories of the whole session, but the last week will have more than its fair share. I have plenty of my own, and mine had to be squeezed a bunch of adult tasks. For the campers, with their only focus needing to be on the camp experience, it was perhaps the perfect camp week.
When your campers get home, don’t be too surprised if there’s a slight decompression period. Camp is an immersive experience, and returning to “the real world,” as it’s often referred to at camp, often takes a little adjustment. Some will be effusive with songs and stories immediately. Some will want to spend all their time on devices communicating with camp friends, frustrating the adults in their life – “You just spent a month with these people! Don’t I get a minute?” Others will just want to sleep. Never fear; the real world will do its thing; it just may take a few days.
Thank you for sharing your children with us, genuinely. We know it’s a sacrifice, of money, of time, of emotion, to send them to camp for a month. It’s a privilege to be a part of their camp experiences. We hope you see the rewards of it in their eyes when you see them today, and we hope to see as many of them as possible back at camp next year.